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Chris Tarbell had decided he wouldn’t travel down to the deconfliction meeting the Department of
Justice was setting up. He knew he was being a prima donna, but he also knew he “didn’t have time
for that shit.”
The FBI agents in the Pit didn’t have time for much these days. They were, after all, sifting
through the biggest bounty anyone could ever hope for on this case: the Silk Road servers.
“We’ll conference in from New York,” Tarbell told Serrin Turner, the assistant U.S. attorney
from the Southern District of New York. “Plus, you’ll be there.” There wasn’t much of a discussion
about it; Tarbell had made up his mind. But to ensure they didn’t piss off anyone at the DOJ, they
decided to send down two other agents on the case.
• • •
The door to Jared’s hotel room clicked shut behind him as he wandered down the hall of the Hilton in
downtown Washington, DC, walking toward the elevator. His mind was spinning, trying to figure out
what he was going to say at the deconfliction meeting that had been organized by the DOJ.
He had been warned by the agents on the Baltimore task force that he shouldn’t say anything at
all. The reason for this, they told him, was that there were rumors floating around that the FBI would
be in the meeting, and “everyone knows how shady those FBI fuckers can be.” If Jared stood up and
named one of his own suspects in the investigation, and someone from the Bureau was indeed in the
room, they could run off and use that name in their own probe. “They are the worst snakes in the
world,” the Baltimore team warned him. “Don’t say anything in the meeting.”
But Jared wasn’t so sure that was true; maybe the best way forward was to collaborate.
Baltimore was no help at all, but there could be other agents out there whom he could pool resources
with. His go-it-alone attitude had gotten him far in the case, but he was starting to question if it could
get him all the way.
As Jared drove toward the secret facility in DC where the meeting would be held, he couldn’t
figure out what to do. He didn’t know if he should tell everyone about his recent arrests, or about the
other accounts he had taken over on the Silk Road, or about the more than 3,500 seizures that now
took up every crevice in his office, piled from floor to ceiling.
Fuck, he thought. What am I supposed to do?
• • •
The conference room was massive, with enough seating for more than thirty-five people. In one
corner Gary sat, staring at the morass of people, most of whom he had never seen before. In another
corner Jared inspected the screen on the wall, which displayed the faces of two men, both in another
location, who were staring down at everyone. And from that screen Tarbell looked out at the sea of
government employees who were now taking their seats.
Wow, there are a lot of people in this meeting, Tarbell thought. Sure is a good use of
government money.
“Okay, let’s get started,” a man said as the room quieted down. “Let’s go around and introduce
ourselves. I’ll start. I’m Luke Dembosky with the Department of Justice.” The room went quiet
instantly, as if someone had pressed a mute button somewhere. Luke Dembosky was high, high, high
up in the U.S. government. He was someone you didn’t interrupt or fuck with. Everyone knew that.